Weekly Review 12th – 18th September 2011 [the wait continues]

People keep asking me “Nick, why haven’t you left Budapest yet?” or “What’s happening with football?”. It’s frustrating when I tell them that is just takes a long time.. I don’t think their convinced with that answer. I want to prove to them and others who talk about me, that I’m good enough already.. to say that “I told you so”. I had a conversation this week with a friend while he was driving me to the tram stop to go home from training. It’s his view that you should do well in school, study, go to university and get a good paying job. Ever since I read the book ‘Rich Dad Poor Dad’ by Robert Kiysoaki 3 or 4 years ago, I’ve been mapping my life so I don’t go to university or ever work for somebody else (football is an exception, it’s not the same thing). Besides football (I have two passions, football and business) This is why I have constantly been creating and working on online businesses the last 5 years or so, since I was 13. I do have big dreams, big ambitions, and although I haven’t achieved anything yet, I have the belief in a formula for success which follows in the footsteps of other successful millionaires, athletes, etc. Dream + Believe + Work Hard + Never Give Up = Success. But my friend says to me, what if you don’t make it, what if you don’t become what you dreamed, then what are you going to do? I didn’t have a Plan B for him, I only know now what I want to do now and how to get there. He told me I’m crazy and that so many people fail. I told him, watch where I’ll be in 5 years time. My goal by then:  Net worth of $20 million dollars and playing in the Champions League.

This was sent to me via email this week by a guy called Kevin. I was using LinkedIn this week and sent him an email, after some back and forth and telling him my desires and frustration with my agent, this is what he said:

” Unfortunately there are a lot of agents  who are working only to earn a lot. They are not able to
understand the player and the team manager.

The best example is Edin Dzeko.

With 19 he played for Sarajevo. His agent offered him to an Austrian club for very little money. They were laughing at him. Because he is a striker and nobody knows him. Than he joined the club Teplice and he got the best foreign player in this league. Now he is one of the best strikers in Europe. Do you know what I mean? He worked hard and he achieved his goal.

You have to work with an agent with whom you have confidence. He has to know what are your skills where you want to play the next year and where you want to play in 5 years. At the beginning everyone has to forget the money. You must play 90 min. The italian teams have a special network. They buy young players for a Serie A club and then they lend him to a club in the Serie B or Serie C. When he returns he could be a famous player. ” 

Everyone has a dream, but only very few really go for them. The fear of failure holds us back for pursuing them. People give up because there told their not good enough, or that success is an illusion, or only people that are lucky become successful. This is all BULLSHIT. If you trust in the forumla, you will make it and I’ll prove it to you.

So this week I trained with Moses primarily, 5 x 2 hour sessions. I went to Buda and Hegyvidek training on the side. I felt the same fucking injury coming back in my upper hammy. Moses with his wisdom said for that to fully recover, you should only do jogging and light training for two months. But obviously I can’t just sit out right now, so either I wait until I get seriously injured or wait until next summer for that. What will be good for it is icing regularly, putting muscle cream on it before and after training and not overtraining.

LinkedIn is sort of like a social network for employees and business people, so naturally it’s a good place to find people involved in the football area. I randomly contacted a few people on the network and told them who I am. Actually, three people responded to me. One was this Croatian guy who called, and said he could arrange something for me in Slovakia, although I haven’t heard back from him since the week before last. Then there was this Austrian guy called Kevin, who used to be a professional player but got injured (just like Khaled from Invision) and now helps players and is starting a sports brand. Finally, a guy called Fernando responded and he passed on my information to the head coach of Kansas in the MLS and Alfonso Mondelo in New York in charge of finding players for MLS.

I wonder what will be the outcome, and if anything will actually happen out of making these contacts. What I am proving though is that if you have talent, you can make your own luck. My CV is the least impressive thing on this earth, but just a website, a video and Cold-emailing is what I have done for the last year or two, and it’s led to Chris being my agent, aswell as Mikko (contacts in Finland/Slovakia), Khaled (contacts in Scandanavia), Jan (Australian u/20 national coach), and these other guys this week. I’ll say this now and I’ll say it again, I gotta make it professionally. How can I fail if I keep improving, keep working hard, and keep making new connections. I just can’t (fingers crossed I don’t get seriously injured).

In fact next week I’m making a promise to myself that I’ll contact 5 more people on LinkedIn because this tactic might work.

Oh, and I haven’t heard back from Chris about Scotland……… gotta remain patient : /

Next Week
Continue to train and do the mental training. 19:20 done this week, 40 minutes more than required. Moses’ personal training sessions with me is always really great, even if I have to pay him $25 a session now. I always feel fitter and a better player. Main problem we were concentrating on this week was me beating a defender one on one and finishing. Next week I think it’s more of the same.

15 hours next week.

You Can Achieve your Dream